Xbox? Done.

[Lilith]

Very well written article Bob, lacking much of the paranoid hyperbole of some others. As a PC gamer for the most part (and a Sony gamer for the rest) I'm glad that, for the moment at least, I'm safe from this madness. We can only hope that those less tech-savvy don't blindly go out and buy the xbone just 'because'.

My hope is that Steam stick with their current philosophy and continue to make content available for reasonable prices and a DRM that allows you to play your content on any machine you choose. They may not be physical copies but at least I feel like I own my games from Steam, rather than have permission to use them; often picking them up at prices that don't leave me out of pocket.

Until recently, I didn't this a company could do more to alienate gamers than EA. Oh my, how wrong was I?

 

[TheNarrator]

This is a sad evolution, but it was bound to happen. You have to understand that 'ownership' of media doesn't exist. What you paid for when you buy a CD isn't the disk (way too cheap to justify the price of a music CD) or the information stored on it (since information is so easy to copy, it's supply is practically infinite so it inherently has no real value), it's the permission to use the disk. And while the physical carrier technically becomes your property, the information stored on it isn't; even after you bought it, there are still other people telling you what you can and can't do with it, so you can't reasonably see your own music, film or video game collections as your property. You're not allowed to share your 'property', you're not allowed to lend out your 'property', you're technically not even allowed to let others listen to your music or watch your films when they're in your house. The only reasonable conclusion is that it's just not your property.

The whole concept of 'buying' media was a lie to begin with. Publishers could pretend you were buying their stuff as long as the carriers were physical, because it's easy to see a music CD as an item you can own, but now that physical carriers are becoming obsolete, the true nature of copyright law, in all its arbitrarity, becomes more clear. Don't make the mistake of thinking this is a new thing. It's an old thing becoming more apparent.

 

[ShipofFools]

Load up your gaming PC's!
Paint your tabletop models!
Dust off your boardgames!
Find a creepy guy who can GM tabletop RPG's!

There's plenty of gaming to be had, even without those overpriced frankenstein consoles. I believe a crash in videogames would, eventually, revitalize the industry and maybe then we can move forward again, instead of going sideways all the time.

 

[kingmob]

Consumers care about value, that's why it will never actually become that bad. People will buy almost anything, not caring what horrible practices are behind it, but they must want it first. And say what you will, publishers will never have the kind of power that grants them this kind of immunity. It is too easy to become a competitor, as Microsoft will find out very swiftly.
The world of games is no longer one where you can 'lock-in' people on an entire system. On a single game, maybe, but for systems it is suicide to even attempt.

And once a company (be it nvidia, valve or someone else) develops a good thin client that'll stream your games to your TV with minimum lag, the console-game will be kind of over imo.

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

I don't see it so bleak, sooner or later all the games, music and movies, consoles games come to GOG.com.

It may take 30 years or more, but it's only a question of when.
They managed to re-release System Shock 2, that was a fundamental shift in Digital History.

 

[Colt47]

Consumers care about value, that's why it will never actually become that bad. People will buy almost anything, not caring what horrible practices are behind it, but they must want it first. And say what you will, publishers will never have the kind of power that grants them this kind of immunity. It is too easy to become a competitor, as Microsoft will find out very swiftly.
The world of games is no longer one where you can 'lock-in' people on an entire system. On a single game, maybe, but for systems it is suicide to even attempt.

And once a company (be it nvidia, valve or someone else) develops a good thin client that'll stream your games to your TV with minimum lag, the console-game will be kind of over imo.

The day a company develops a thin client that will stream games to our computer is the day that company goes bankrupt because no one wants to have games as a service. We already have a bad enough time with DRM being shoved onto retail level purchases: a game streaming service would be the worst possible DRM a company could shill. Plus, we'd have so pay for the servers those games are running on via some kind of subscription service and likely still pay for each individual game we want to access.

Companies are seeing MMOs and thinking they can apply this always online aspect to every other type of game when this is NOT the case.

 

[Mechanix]

You really hit the nail on the head with "permission" over "ownership". When I pay money for something, I better damn well be able to do whatever the fuck I want with it.

 

[WarpZone]

Well, Bob, when Nintendo eventually adopts this business model too, and there's NO way to legally play the latest Mario title EXCEPT on Nintento's cloud, will you buy a PC game that has gameplay sorta like Mario instead?

If the answer is "no," you're part of the problem.

And, yeah, in the future, PC (regardless of operating system) is going to be the ONLY platform where your game is still "yours."

Assuming it's not on Steam, of course.

Good lord we are fucked.

 

[Mosstromo]

Hear, hear!!! (while pounding on my table).

 

[InvisibleMan]

Are we still talking about video games and other forms of entertainment here? Because even Microsoft knows that if their product is too impractical or inconvenient for the majority of consumers, they will choose to simply do something else for fun. Really, as much as I hate to say it (and as much as you will hate me for saying it), we will not die or go crazy if we stop playing video games due to how much commitment the company that distributes them will demand from us in order to play them. We will just do something else.

And, as Bob implied, our Gameboys, DSs and PS2s will still continue working for many, many years.

 

[Pandalisk]

Fifth rule of gold

"Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment."

EA, Konami with Dark Souls II Advertising "going guns blazing" and Microsoft might do well to heed it.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Pretty much this, Izanagi. This, the fact that the Wii U's Amazon sales have skyrocketed, UK polls showing that the Xbone has been given a very frigid reception, and the fact that my one industry buddy is now considering jumping ship as a consumer, from consoles to a desktop PC - all of that shows me that Microsoft and Sony are probably trying to bite more than they can chew.

I don't doubt that all the platforms will eventually have the same amount of evangelists and fanboys, but I wouldn't be surprised if initial sales for the new Xbox end up disappointing market researchers.

That is, assuming the community has a good long-term memory. Which it doesn't always have.

There was a thread on the WiiU's "skyrocketing sales" on Amazon. I'm pretty sure it was debunked at fraudulent due to a bad source.

Read this thread:[link]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.408774-Amazon-UK-Wii-U-sales-rank-jump-by-875-following-Xbox-One-reveal?page=1[/link]

It went from "Wii U sales on Amazon up 875%" to "Wii U rank on Amazon up 875%" to "Wait...nvm...the Wii U's rank went up 129% from one store on Amazon." Hardly skyrocketing sales.


Edit: Looking further into that thread it turns out that the 129% number was actually a lower rank that the Wii U sales were the day before. Falling from 160%. Yeah, there was no rise in Wii U sales.

 

[babinro]

For me the Xbox was done when the 360 was proved completely unreliable.
I've known about 20 people in real life who bought the system and the LEAST times they replaced it was once.
The majority had to buy the console at least 3 times over (one person 7 times over)

That said I really don't think the Xbox is done with recent announcements. Gamers are notoriously bad at voting with their wallets. We'll see hate and rage on the forums for months/years but in the end it'll still be a tight console race against the PS4.

Personally I won't give Xbox One a second thought until at least 3 years pass and I'm confident the console is reasonably reliable.

 

[kingmob]

Consumers care about value, that's why it will never actually become that bad. People will buy almost anything, not caring what horrible practices are behind it, but they must want it first. And say what you will, publishers will never have the kind of power that grants them this kind of immunity. It is too easy to become a competitor, as Microsoft will find out very swiftly.
The world of games is no longer one where you can 'lock-in' people on an entire system. On a single game, maybe, but for systems it is suicide to even attempt.

And once a company (be it nvidia, valve or someone else) develops a good thin client that'll stream your games to your TV with minimum lag, the console-game will be kind of over imo.

The day a company develops a thin client that will stream games to our computer is the day that company goes bankrupt because no one wants to have games as a service. We already have a bad enough time with DRM being shoved onto retail level purchases: a game streaming service would be the worst possible DRM a company could shill. Plus, we'd have so pay for the servers those games are running on via some kind of subscription service and likely still pay for each individual game we want to access.

Companies are seeing MMOs and thinking they can apply this always online aspect to every other type of game when this is NOT the case.

You misunderstand. The streaming is done from your own computer/server, not theirs. It'll take some time until people understand it for sure, but then the value will be obvious. You no longer have to choose between pc games and console games, you'll have both available. Consoles will never be able to compete in price, convenience and useability.

 

[Colt47]

Consumers care about value, that's why it will never actually become that bad. People will buy almost anything, not caring what horrible practices are behind it, but they must want it first. And say what you will, publishers will never have the kind of power that grants them this kind of immunity. It is too easy to become a competitor, as Microsoft will find out very swiftly.
The world of games is no longer one where you can 'lock-in' people on an entire system. On a single game, maybe, but for systems it is suicide to even attempt.

And once a company (be it nvidia, valve or someone else) develops a good thin client that'll stream your games to your TV with minimum lag, the console-game will be kind of over imo.

The day a company develops a thin client that will stream games to our computer is the day that company goes bankrupt because no one wants to have games as a service. We already have a bad enough time with DRM being shoved onto retail level purchases: a game streaming service would be the worst possible DRM a company could shill. Plus, we'd have so pay for the servers those games are running on via some kind of subscription service and likely still pay for each individual game we want to access.

Companies are seeing MMOs and thinking they can apply this always online aspect to every other type of game when this is NOT the case.

You misunderstand. The streaming is done from your own computer/server, not theirs. It'll take some time until people understand it for sure, but then the value will be obvious. You no longer have to choose between pc games and console games, you'll have both available. Consoles will never be able to compete in price, convenience and useability.

It sounds like you're talking about remote play using a device like the PS Vita and that's far different than what people are complaining about here. Also, I work with networking a lot so it's kind of frustrating when I see companies trying stupid ideas like centralized GPU servers.